Abbey was again late, and did not have the Howard Hughes book, or her computer (She was skyping off of her iPad), which made it very difficult to do any research/notecards for the paper. We talked about what work she needed to do before Monday for the paper, and then spent the rest of the session working on her vocabulary - which is due Monday.
It wasn't the most productive of sessions as Abbey was 30 minutes late and had a Spanish lesson after. She also didn't bring the book I asked her to bring, nor had she done any research. We got through 2-3 notecards on HH's film career, and then she had to go.
Abbey had done zero work on the research since last week. We found multiple sources, and I had asked her to read through them and look for important facts to include in the paper, but as of today, she hadn't read any of it. We worked on developing note cards for the various sections of the paper, but she got worn out and didn't want to finish. (even though they were due today.) We got through roughly 2/3 of the paper, but she stiil needs to do extensive research before actually writing the paper, ESPECIALLY the book that she has, that I do not have a copy of. At the end, we spent 45 minutes going through her vocabulary workbooks, which are due tomorrow.
Abbey has a new project on the "Most Influential American" that began this week. Her mom had chosen Howard Hughes, but Abbey didn't have any information or thought about why she would choose him. I questioned whether or not he was an appropriate choice, so we did some research and ulitimately decided it could work. We found multiple sources and completed her works cited page which was due the next day.
Last week we talked about preparing all of her vocabulary words for the exam (1/3 of the exam). We spent the session going over all the material for her English exam. She has to know a large list of literary devices, and we spent most of today going through those and giving examples of each from the stories she's read this semester. She should be ok with Of Mice and Men, but should reread the two short stories. We agreed to meet again on Thursday to see where she is.
Session Minutes
90
Minutes Student Attended
90
Lesson Comments
I've had Abbie making flashcards since we started working together, but apparently, those have all been lost. I asked her last week to start making new ones, but that did not happen. She basically did little to no work over the last week, which is going to put her behind the 8-ball for the next week. She has 4 exams, and has not started preparing for any. I asked her to write up a study schedule and send it to me, but I have not gotten that yet.
Abbie got her study guides for exams, and we started going through each class to make lists for what she needs to do to prepare. Abbie was tired today and it was very difficult to get her motivated or keep her focused. We talked about what she needs to do to prepare for english, and then went through her vocabulary for the next test.
go over incomplete work
Of Mice and Men Study Guide
We started off discussing her outstanding Biology work, which Abbey assured me multiple times had been completed. Obviously, I have no way of confirming this, so I took her at her word. We should have been able to finish the study guide for Of Mice and Men pretty quickly, but she lost the first two pages and we had to go back and redo them. She has a pretty solid understanding of the book, but remembered very few of the specific details from the earlier chapters. We went through the material and rewrote those pages, and then finished with the questions from the last chapter. Having worked with Abbey on literature before, I can say that her focus and comprehension have improved. She had a much clearer understanding of the material than books we worked on previously.
Despite her promise to do so, Abbey did not follow the list we made up and didn't get as much work done over the weekend as I would have hoped. We talked about living up to her end of the bargain, and making time every day for work. She can't expect it all to get done in our sessions. There simply is not enough time. We went through all of her vocabulary and completed all of the vocab study guide questions. We then talked about the reading and updated her list for the week to reflect all of her classes.
We spent the first half of the session going over her classes, and talking about how to get organized. I had her make up a list of all the work she has to do, and we talked about maintaining the list on a daily basis. One of Abbey's biggest obstacles is that she tends to forget assignments, or forget when they are due. We came up with a comprehensive list for her to follow and then started working on her Of Mice and Men Study guide. We spent a little bit of time in the end on vocabulary, and will continue that on Monday.
We finished up talking about The Glass Castle and the argument book. Zach has some more reading to do, but should have no problem finishing before the beginning of school. This was probably our last session, so we spent some time talking about next year, and the things Zach wants to focus on. It's been a great experience working with him, and I expect him to do very well moving forward.
